Chapter 21

Chapter Twenty-One

My dearest Apollo,

I know it's silly to write a letter that will take two weeks to get to you when we have email, but when I saw this lacy red teddy in the store, I couldn't resist buying it. I can't exactly store it in my underwear drawer—my mom would freak if she found it!! So I'm sending it to you to keep it safe. Bring it with you when you come home for Freya's graduation.

I'm counting the days until you're home and I can wear it for you! I miss you so much. I know your visit is to celebrate Freya, but I hope while you're here, we can tell our parents about us. I'll be 18 in August and will be able to get a passport without my father's approval. I can't wait to visit you in Paris. I want to take a gap year and travel. I have graduation money and I've been saving all my money from working at the bookstore for the last year. If your roommates don't object, I could stay with you for a month before going to Germany to visit the places where my mom grew up. I'll cook and clean—anything you want so long as I can stay with you. I can wear the teddy every night.

Imagine, a whole month together…?

I want your body pressed to mine, to make love again and again. Sometimes, it feels like last December was just a dream.

I miss you so much. I'm counting the days to graduation when I can see you again. I'm on the pill now, so we won't have to mess around with condoms.

Just a few more months, and we can be together.

How cool is it that your sister is salutatorian and your girlfriend is valedictorian?! Freya and I will sit next to each other at graduation and will give our speeches back-to-back. I doubt I'll be able to concentrate, knowing you'll be watching, but I will practice and practice my speech to make you proud.

I love you,

Kira

F reya swiped at the tears that fell as she reread the letter she'd found in her brother's apartment two months after his death twenty-two years ago. He'd died along with their parents in a terrorist suicide bombing at a market in Greece, just weeks after receiving lingerie in a care package from seventeen-year-old Kira.

Freya had known Kira since middle school. She'd recognized Kira's crush on her older brother almost from the start, but Apollo was three years older, and, being a full-of-himself jock, had mocked Kira when she wasn't around.

Finding the letter when she was so deep in grief, she hadn't been able to process what it meant even though she understood the gist. Her twenty-year-old brother had taken advantage of Kira's infatuation when he was home for winter break. That was bad enough, but it wasn't what triggered Freya's tears. No, that ache came from the fact that her brother had a girlfriend in Paris at the same time he was seducing sweet young Kira.

Worse, this fact was revealed to Kira long before Freya found the letter.

His girlfriend had posted all over the weblog—newly dubbed "blog" back in the dark ages of the internet—created in their hometown to send condolences to Freya as she cleaned out her brother's apartment in Paris and arranged her entire family's funeral in Greece. Apollo's girlfriend had posted repeatedly, sharing photos of her and Apollo kissing in every corner of Paris and the French countryside.

Truth was, the woman had been a nasty piece of work who tried to claim Apollo's TV and couch until Freya showed the literal receipts that proved she was lying.

At the end of those awful days, she'd found herself wishing Kira had been his actual girlfriend. But no. He might have been a great brother, but he was a shitty man who'd never had a chance to grow out of being a dick to women.

In the years since Apollo's death, Freya had never revealed to Kira that she'd found the letter. She'd been too overwhelmed with her own grief at first to be able to face Kira's certain pain. Later, she hadn't wanted to embarrass the other woman.

She must've been gutted at seeing the blog comments with photos of Apollo with another woman, but as the years ticked by, surely that pain had eased?

Even if it had, it was the kind of thing that left deep scars, especially because Kira had been so… young . She and Freya were the same age, but somehow, Kira always felt younger.

She wondered about those scars now. Kira was shy and flustered easily. Freya knew she intimidated her, and assumed it was residual embarrassment over Apollo's betrayal. Still, hiring Kira as a consultant for Friday Morning Valkyries had been a no-brainer. She was confident when it came to her work and always delivered.

Until Freya got her abducted.

And now Kira could be in trouble again, and it felt wrong somehow that they'd never buried their shared pain at Apollo's death, shared horror that the brother she loved could be so rotten.

Just once, she could have hugged the woman and told her how bright and beautiful she'd been at seventeen and how grateful Freya was to have her in her life now.

She didn't want to lose her before they could have that conversation. Kira was the only person who remained from Freya's old life, when she had a family, before she became a covert operator.

Freya's husband, Cassius, entered her office. He took one look at her face and said, "What's going on, Frey?"

His concern triggered another tear. Or maybe it was just her complicated, secret history with Kira. She swiped at it. "Nothing."

He leaned down and kissed her forehead. "Liar." He nodded toward the folded letter she gripped tightly. "What's in that letter? This isn't the first time you've held it and cried."

She let out a deep breath. "I…I can't tell you. It's not my letter. Not my story to tell."

Should she have burned the letter when she found it? Why had she kept it?

Because Kira lost Apollo too.

Freya had felt so alone in her grief. Her brother's girlfriend had been a nightmare to deal with. In spite of the fact that Apollo clearly didn't deserve her, Kira had known him for years and loved him. Her grief had been deep and real.

When she'd read the letter all those years ago, she'd felt a connection to Kira.

"Fine. But whose story is it?"

"Kira's."

"From when you were kids?"

"Yes."

"If it's about her father, it's relevant."

"It's not. But damn, I'm so worried. Rand will be with her the next time she meets with her so-called cousin."

"That could be dangerous."

"Not if she doesn't know. As long as she believes he's who he says he is, she's not in danger from him. He's obviously using her for something. This way, we can find out what that is."

"When she learns the truth, she's going to be angry at you, but Rand'll be the one to pay for it."

She felt sick at the idea of spiking things with Rand for Kira. But this was what she did. She was an operator who knew the game and how to get the best results. To protect Kira, they needed intel. To get that intel, they needed Kira's sweet unworldliness to work in their favor. But it came with a steep price. "I'm afraid when all this is over, Kira's going to hate me more than she already does."

In her mind, she gave the real truth she couldn't share with Cassius: I'm afraid she'll hate me more than she hates my brother.

A pollo was Freya's brother.

Her dead brother.

To say Rand was stunned was an understatement. Freya had never mentioned her brother. Or her parents. But then, Freya never talked about her life before the CIA. She didn't really talk about the CIA portion of her life either, but Rand had first met her and her husband in Djibouti before they were a couple. He'd been on several ops that she'd orchestrated or facilitated during the months his team had been deployed to the Horn of Africa.

She'd been one of the best in the field intelligence-gatherers he'd ever worked with. He respected her, but she'd been hard to like back then. Of course, this was true for most special operators, especially ones in positions like hers, where secrets and manipulation were paramount to getting the job done. It wasn't until after she'd left the CIA that they'd really become friends.

He tried to imagine the well of pain she'd suffered at losing her family all at once just before her eighteenth birthday. Now he understood the cold operative she'd been a little better. But it was Kira's loss and pain that mattered here and now. "Apollo was a dick, you know."

She nodded. "I know. Still hurt at the time."

It still hurt her now , or she wouldn't have invoked his name when she was delirious after being abducted.

She'd looked at Rand and thought of Apollo. That had to mean she'd also felt the chemistry that had burned bright the day they met. But Kira's words that day had also revealed her deep distrust.

And oh hell. Now he understood how seeing him with Staci would have an extra edge of pain, even though he and Kira weren't seeing each other, secretly or otherwise. When he'd asked her out on Tuesday, she'd deflected, mentioning his girlfriend. He'd figured she meant Staci, but she also could have been probing, asking if he was the kind of guy who had a girlfriend but hit on other women.

"What Apollo did was painful, but also mortifying. Truth is, you're the first person I've ever told about this."

That caught him off guard. "I'm honored. And so sorry you felt the need to hide it."

"I mean, I wouldn't have told you now if I hadn't spilled the beans when I was out of it, but…I'm glad I did. Keeping it locked up has probably made it harder to let go."

It was a long time to hold on to pain, but then, she'd been all of seventeen and she'd had a crush on Apollo since she was twelve.

By the time they got together, Apollo had been twenty, a legal adult. Rand had no idea what the laws in Pennsylvania were, then or now, but guessed the three-year age gap was within the legal limits for a minor. Still, that probably wouldn't have stopped protective Conrad Hanson from going after the young man if he'd known. No wonder the relationship had been secret.

Did this have anything to do with Hanson's dislike of Rand from the start? Was it because of his association with Freya? "Do you think your father knew?"

"I think he figured it out after Apollo died. I was a wreck. A little too upset, according to some. But I was not the most mature teenager to begin with."

"That's hard to imagine." They'd resumed walking as she told the bitter story, and now they reached the part of the fort where an entrance fee was required. Rand paid it, and they strolled through the stone walls, but this time, he wasn't taking in the history or design.

"I was pretty sheltered. Homeschooled until seventh grade will do that. We moved around a bunch before my dad got the permanent teaching job. I don't remember most of the places we lived on the East Coast before we settled in Pennsylvania when I was ten. With all the moves, I never really had friends. When I finally started public school, I didn't fit in with the kids in my class. Academically, sure. I was trilingual and reading at a college level in two of those languages before I ever sat in a classroom. But the social stuff? I was hopeless.

"Shy. Awkward. I looked younger than everyone else and hit puberty later, which didn't help. I didn't get my first period until I was fifteen—tenth grade—which is on the later end, but normal. Still, I was mortified. In ninth-grade gym class, we had a six-week swimming unit, and I sat out a week like all the other girls, pretending I'd had a period… It seems ridiculous now, but it meant so much at the time. I was desperate to fit in, but I looked and acted like a child. I suppose having sex with Apollo my senior year gave me a false sense of maturity. Like if I could do that, I was an adult. Or at least as grown up as the other seniors."

"I'm pretty sure you aren't the only adolescent to think that."

"How old were you when you lost your virginity?"

"First, I want to point out that virginity is a social construct. It doesn't actually mean anything."

"True, but it's our culture's social construct. I told you mine. You tell me yours."

"I was like you. In retrospect, it was too early—fifteen. But at the time, I thought I was the shit. She was older—my calculus tutor. My dad fired her when I got a D after all that tutoring. I know he wanted to report it, but I wouldn't cooperate. Young and full of hormones that don't make sense. Desperate to grow up fast."

She looked out at the water as they strolled along the fort's high walls. "So, it's safe to say we both got off to a rocky start when it came to sex and relationships."

"Yeah. I did like the sex part, though."

She laughed. "Same. I enjoyed it. It only felt like a mistake when he posthumously broke my heart."

It was time to move on from the heavy topic. Rand stopped and turned to face her. "Okay, so you've explained Apollo, but I want to know why you asked the other question."

Her brow furrowed. "Other question?"

He took her hand and ran his thumb over her knuckles, watching her face closely as he said, "Yes. You asked if I was allergic to strawberries."